GB-A-765,371, discloses a method of making shoe-trees in which a plater cast is made of the front part of an individual's foot and fixed to an end piece to form a shoe tree. Such a shoe tree suffers the disadvantage that the plaster cast reflects the shape of the external surface of the individual's foot when the foot is not restrained by an article of footwear. Since much of contemporary fashion footwear causes an individual's foot to be deformed to some extend, a shoe-tree formed in accordance with GB-A-765,371 would not necessarily be insertable in such fashion footwear.
GB 476,323 discloses a method for making an orthopaedic last derived from an orthopaedically correct old shoe, from which last an orthopaedically correct arch of a new shoe can be subsequently manufactured. The orthopaedic last is formed by filling the orthopaedically correct old shoe with a plastic material and allowing said material to set. Such a method suffers from the disadvantage that it can only be performed using old shoes whose bodies do not comprise straps or apertures since such footwear could not contain the un-set plastic material. The methods of GB 476, 323 would not therefore be suitable for many styles of contemporary fashion footwear.